S4E9: You Have Chinese Pubes in Your Teeth

The Home Cooks have returned from Vegas and are about to find out if Luca or Kathy will be joining them. Krissi’s hair is limp and lifeless as she informs us that Kathy became her best buddy, and it will be really hard on her if she leaves. To none of our surprise (because we watched the last episode), Luca walks through the doors with arms outstretched, and Krissi’s hair manages to look even sadder than before. “I don’t have not one person I can really talk to,” Krissi tells us, and with sentence structure like that, it’s probably for the best.

It’s Mystery Box time, and Eddie is hoping to find a nice piece of meat inside. Krissi wants to find something in her comfort zone like pasta or maybe some volumizer. They lift their boxes to reveal a “bounty of ethnic ingredients from Russia, Spain, China, all around the globe,” according to Graham. Howard announces his displeasure with a raspberry. Suddenly, we get a shot of all of the Home Cooks with their Mystery Boxes once again closed. And now they’re magically back open. There is sorcery afoot!

The challenge begins, and the Home Cooks start touching, smelling, and tasting things, followed by the Home Cooks getting the creeps, gagging, and spitting things out.

Gordon and the other judges privately go over some of the ingredients: elk, Spanish salt-cured tuna, Okinawa sweet potato, cod’s liver, and Chinese pubic hair – err, ground moss.

Eddie pounds his elk into gamey submission and is making a puree from the purple sweet potato. Jordan is making a stack salad with what he assumes are baby eels. Bime is also using the baby eels, making a surf and turf with the elk. Lynn says his first words he’s ever uttered on the show, telling Gordon that he’s making a root puree with a tuna tartare.

Time ends, and the judges walk around to examine the dishes. Lynn’s dish looks like a work of art, and he is appropriately pleased with himself. This guy seems to be out of everyone’s league cooking-wise, though his personality is comprised of mostly cardboard. He’s obviously not on the show to get as much camera time as possible, which makes me wonder if he understands exactly what show he is on.

The top three:

Eddie’s elk flank with Japanese sweet potato puree. It looks simple as hell, and I’m not sure why they chose him other than to give him a little more face time. “This dish may look simple,” says Joe, correcting me. “But it’s actually very complex.” My bad.

Jordan’s stack salad with Chinese moss and baby eels. It’s colorful and repulsive-looking. The judges dig in. “Smart,” says Graham. “Smart,” adds Gordon. “I’m not eating that shit,” implies Joe.

Bime’s elk flank with baby eels and sweet potato. Gordon tells a disappointed Lynn that he didn’t season his dish properly (and that he needs to have more personality for the cameras). “A tour de force,” raves Joe over Bime’s dish. Gordon doesn’t think it’s a fluke. He’s right. It’s baby eels.

The winner is Steady Eddie, who follows the judges to the pantry. The theme for the Elimination Challenge is pasta with a filling. Eddie’s choices are the very very difficult agnolotti, Graham’s favorite mezzaluna, and caramelle which looks a lot like taffy. These are some obscure pastas, but it’s all ravioli to me. Eddie won’t have to cook, so he says he wants to pick the most difficult dish. “Smart,” says Graham. “Smart,” adds Gordon.

Eddie chose agnolotti. “Agno-how many?” says no one, because they’re not hilarious like me. A special guest is coming on to show the Home Cooks how to make this dish that they’ve never heard of. It’s the person who taught Joe everything he knows about pasta, his mother Lidia Bastianich. She’s a famous television chef and restaurateur, and Krissi freaks right the fuck out. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of a day for poor Krissi and her sad hair.

Before Lidia begins teaching, Eddie gets to pick two Home Cooks that have to sit out the demonstration. He chooses two of the strongest competitors: James and Lynn. Here’s another test for my theory that Cooks given disadvantages never lose. This is a pretty huge disadvantage, so I’m nervous for my theory. Also, they’ve been showing a ton of Lynn this episode, so he’s either going to be at the top or the bottom at the end of this.

Lynn and James leave, and Lidia starts the lesson. It looks pretty simple: make a Close Encounters mountain of flour, throw in some eggs, beat the shit out of it, take a nap, crank it out, grind up some leftovers, slap that shit onto the pasta, roll it, cut it, boil it, make some grandma sauce or something, drizzle that shit, grate some cheese, and voila! Agnolotti.

The guys come back in, and the Elimination Challenge begins.

Uh Oh Howard wants to put himself in his dish, which is a horrible idea. Jessie is going to put ox tail and short ribs in her pasta, because her leftovers are much fancier than ours. Jonny B (who I’ve been misspelling this whole time) is making a smoked maple syrup Alfredo sauce, which leads Joe to have him excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Lynn is blending his filling, and Gordon shows him everyone else grinding theirs. Does he switch to a grinder? It’s unclear! Commercial break!

Joe and his mama stop by Uh Oh Howard’s station and examine his chicken and bell pepper filling. Lidia tells him to taste it and be aware of the textures, meaning he should bail on his idea. He doesn’t catch on.

Krissi admires Lidia so much; she’d give the Heisman to Jesus to meet her. Lidia tastes her food, likes it, and suddenly Krissi doesn’t care about not having any friends anymore.

Uh Oh Howard is putting too much of himself in his dish, Lynn was dealt the Ace of Bad Pasta by Eddie, and Beth went to the same school of water boiling that Luca did.

It’s time for tasting, and James is first. Lidia thinks his flavors are good, and Graham agrees.

Next is Lynn’s dish. It’s under seasoned again, and his pasta has an awkward thickness, #thatswhatshesaid.

Jonny B’s maple syrup butternut squash dish does not delight Lidia. She thinks it would work better as a dessert.

Jessie goes next, and we’re treated to a sound bite of Krissi telling us she doesn’t like Jessie and her hoity toity manners. First Krissi was sad, then happy, and now belligerent. Someone needs a nap. Jessie’s pasta is beautiful, and so is Jessie. But Gordon says it isn’t her looks that make her stand out, but her cooking – and her looks.

Mercurial Krissi’s Swiss chard agnolotti is up, and Lidia likes her proportions. Krissi is happy once again.

Beth is nervous about her dish. She says it’s either worse case or worser case. Graham agrees.

Uh Oh Howard is not 100% confident in his dish. Lidia doesn’t appreciate the mouthful of peppers he feeds her. His eyes tear up again, and noted non-crybaby sufferer Joe isn’t having it. Howard mouths off, and Joe rips his soul out of said mouth, grinds it, stuffs it into agnolotti pasta, and eats it. It tastes better than Howard’s dish.

2^nd place goes to Krissi, and Jessie takes the win.

The bottom three are – no! Bottom four! Does this mean another trip to Vegas? Let’s hope not. It’s Jonny, Howard, Beth, and Lynn. Beth and Jonny get the quick reprieve, and it’s down to Lynn and Howard.

Gordon asks the losing Home Cook to remove his apron and place it on his station, only he hasn’t said who it is yet. He says that the Cook knows who he is and should do the honorable thing. Does he really know? I don’t know who he is.  What’s the right move here? This is intense!

Howard removes his apron! The Honorable Howard Huge, ladies and gentlemen. Helluva guy. He goes home having learned an important lesson: next time don’t put himself in the dish; choose Jessie instead.

So Lynn is still in, but more importantly, my theory holds true. Just like me, Lynn is back in the game, but he won’t be for long if he doesn’t decide to add some seasoning to his food, but more importantly, to his personality.